It was not only that the Ionians were more inventive than their neighbours, but that whatever was beautiful in invention they at once seized and appropriated.

Restless, inquisitive, ardent, they attempted all things, and perfected art--searched into all things, and consummated philosophy.
The Ionic character existed everywhere among Ionians, but the Doric was not equally preserved among the Dorians.

The reason is evident.
The essence of the Ionian character consisted in the spirit of change -- that of the Dorian in resistance to innovation.

When any Doric state abandoned its hereditary customs and institutions, it soon lost the Doric character--became lax, effeminate, luxurious--a corruption of the character of the Ionians; but no change could assimilate the Ionian to the Doric; for they belonged to different eras of civilization--the Doric to the elder, the Ionian to the more advanced.
The two races of Scotland have become more alike than heretofore; but it is by making the highlander resemble the lowlander--and not by converting the lowland citizen into the mountain Gael.

The habits of commerce, the substitution of democratic for oligarchic institutions, were sufficient to alter the whole character of the Dorians.